Tuile not get the best of me!

What's your favourite thing to bake? Mine is cake. Not only do I love the texture, especially of a sponge cake, but the method suits me. You pay attention for a few minutes while you whip up the batter, then you put it in the oven and you've got at least 25 minutes before you have to pay attention again. Oh, and when you can smell a cake, it's almost ready. Cookies, on the other hand, require a whole different level of attention that I haven't got. Mixing the dough is fine, but then you have to roll it/cut it/mark it with a 'B'/divide it evenly/roll it into balls/roll them in sugar/press them flat with a fork or glass/space them evenly on the baking sheet/prepare that baking sheet/pay attention for 6 to 12 minutes or so/cool on sheet for a bit/remove to a rack to cool/cool baking sheet. And that only gets you about a dozen cookies, so you have to repeat! They sure do taste fantastic fresh from the oven, though. Why am I going on like this? Well, these tuiles and I are not friends, for many reasons. I made them a couple of months ago, to go with some pumpkin ice cream, but it took a few tries to get it right. I got it really wrong in a number of ways, including one smoke alarm incident. You can read about it here.

Tuile version 1.4, from earlier this year

Why could I make complex things, with multiple components like wedding cake, croquembouche, tian and pavlova, but not a simple cookie? So, when this recipe came up in TWD, I was leery. Did I need to make these again? Was it just bad kitchen karma the last time I tried? Well, the answer is yes, and no. I decided to try again, because they seem so simple. 4 ingredients, one of which is maple syrup. Then, Nancy posted the ingredients in weights, so it seemed easy enough just to make a half recipe. That would have been great, except for the attention span issue. Whenever I halve/double a recipe, I always forget to halve/double one ingredient. I can only pay attention for so long... This time it was the flour. I must have forgotten to halve it (for the second time that day), and didn't notice until I went to pull the first tray from the oven. They had hardly spread and could not even charitably be described as lacy. So, I added a bit of butter and syrup to the rest of the batter and tried again. They were even worse. At this point, I thought it was high time to give up. But, as bedtime approached, I couldn't. I made another half batch, carefully measuring all the ingredients this time.

Version 2.1 (in front) and 2.2 (in back): too much flour, but they tasted like
maple fortune cookies. I may be on to something.

Early the next morning, I got the batch you see up top in the oven, and I am so happy to say that they worked out well. They were crisp and lacy, and easy to remove from the baking sheet. I was so happy, that I had a few with breakfast, along with fruit salad in my favourite bowl.

Thanks so much to Clivia for selecting this recipe! I can now say I enjoyed the process, but I am not going to be making these again for a long while! I actually find them too rich and sweet, and greasy coming off the cookie sheets. Or perhaps that's just the contrast with the sour grapes! I promise not to complain next time. Even though I did get strep throat at school. See what the rest of the TWD gang thought here.